Over Easter in its opening weekend, the Finnish indie movie, Iron Sky, clocked in over €2.3 million in admissions worldwide. The film was released in theaters in Finland, Norway, and Germany to rave reviews from parody historical sci-fi fans. Iron Sky has followed a new model of film fundraising, where it has crowdfunded roughly 10% of its €7.6 million cost by selling merchandise and “war bonds” to fans intrigued by its concept. So far the movie has gathered a 7.8 rating on IMDB.
In Finland alone Iron Sky grabbed 75,000 admissions. And abroad the movie attracted a quarter of a million admissions from 340 screens across Norway and Germany, leading producer Tero Kaukomaa to suggest there was a potential audience of “millions around the world.” Next up the movie will be premiered in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland.
The movie is also taking advantage of digital opportunities, where, for example, an Iron Sky game has been released in the app store. In the game you have to protect the earth from moon nazis. The website also offers a map where you can “demand” to see the movie, which allows distributors to realize there’s good interest in the movie.
It will be interesting to see how much of a model Iron Sky can play for future movie creation and distribution. Clearly it works great for an eye-catching plot hooks like nazis hiding on the dark side of the moon. However, I wonder if the model can translate to more nuanced plots. But that discussion can be left for the future, meanwhile we can just enjoy the ride as Iron Sky paves a good bit of the way there.
